Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Elusive Muse
Tonight she falls
Heavy and flat
Like rain
Striking my face
An inert pall
Spreading its mat
Of sodden leaves
Across the place
Where once we met
In love and ease
Before tight-lipped silence
Snatched her,
Smothering
Supple form and grace
She, as reluctant as I
To venture
Alone into this
Cold, dark abyss
Where just the night before
We danced recklessly
Beneath the candor
Of the harvest moon
Disregarding propriety
And things
For the simplicity of a kiss
In a midnight afternoon
But now,
The emptiness rings
With perpetual echoing
Of footsteps fading
Into the autumn mist
J~
Found
Love's Earnest Plea
Abide with me a little while
Oh darling, do not go
The night is warm beneath your smile
And oh, I need you so
Moments come and then they pass
Like dust tossed to the breeze
Let’s spread our whispers on the grass
In prolonged agonies
The winsome hours do not come
With shadow or with tears
What we put in them is the sum
Of pleasure, pain and years
I care not to leave upon
Some cold grave stone, a rose
If you should leave before me, hon
I’ll hold love’s memories close
Abide with me an hour more
Too soon our memories
Will deck the lawn and garden floor
In dry and withered leaves
Death's carriage stands outside the gate
For either you or I
When it is time he will not wait
Good-bye then love, good-bye
Janet Martin
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
The Gentle Hour
The laid-back breeze begins to tease
The hemlock and the pine
As Heaven’s fingers gently blur
West’s dim horizon-line
While in the east a languid feast
Bleeds from the harvest moon
A lullaby in velvet sky
Without a note or tune
The silhouette of maple-red
Is etched against deep blues
As God above in tones of love
The restless light subdues
And in the hush of dwindled rush
A halo crowns the dust
As all my cares in weightless prayers
Drift to the One I trust
My lesser loves like empty gloves
I place in Hands of grace
Why do I dread the miles ahead?
He holds the stars in space
He writes the hymn of willow limb
The earth He bathes with dew
And in the calm of midnight’s palm
His mercy is made new
Janet Martin
Tonight the silence is perfect, save for a faithful few crickets.
I'm tempted to pull out my wheel-barrow and work in my flower-beds,
the moon is so bright. It would be so still and so CRAZY! Why?
Oh....right. Nights were made for sleeping. Why does God save some of His best displays
for the hours when we're supposed to sleeping?!
His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning.
Great is Your faithfulness. Lam. 3:23
Teenage Compassion
Monday, September 12, 2011
Breath-taking
Caught in beautiful limbo
on that pivotal moment
of desire becoming fulfillment
with nothing more
than the faintest hint
of your smile
A moment, seemingly insignificant
set against a blue sky
but reaching to
the doorway of heaven
when your eyes meet mine
from across the room
Touch stirs and appeases
I have known ecstatic pain
in the warmth of your arm
almost touching mine
and driving me
blissfully insane
J~
When Night Is Deep...
When night is deep and long and low
And void of lisp or sigh
When silver, quivering moments flow
In rivers to the sky
When larkspur, rose and goldenrod
Have dimmed their vibrant hue
And all the earth is one with God
…I think of you
I trace the out-line of my sigh
Intricately designed
In moments filled with you and I
And whispers intertwined
And I cannot begin to tell
The first touch from the last
As mingled tears and laughter fell
Like dew upon the grass
An aching broods upon the mist
A clash of heart and will
Tugs at keen memories half-kissed
When night is slow and still
And curves around me, in a moan
With lips parted and blue
I lay my head upon a stone
…and think of you
J~
Finding Purpose
Sometimes, as the gold threads of daylight are waning
And all its brief moments are garnered like mist,
When the hand gently open on fringes of dawning
Soundlessly closes in a tightly-clenched fist,
As I try to separate beginning from ending
Only to see a perpetual blending
I am perplexed with deep melancholy
Vexed by life’s seeming futility
Do I stand at the end or a brand new beginning
As daylight surrenders to night’s turning page?
Is there any purpose to this life I am living?
Or are moments vague actors on time’s phantom stage?
I reach to touch a tangible truth
And long for the rush of undeterred youth
Is there a victory to this race I am in?
The ‘what was or what is or what might have been’?
I gaze to the heaven’s unfathomable distance
Layers of space upon space with no end
A vault that could swallow ten-thousand oceans
Or wink at an eternity in each grain of sand
Yet greater than this grand infinity
Is an undeniable eternity
A-waiting each soul that departs from this earth
So then, death is a beginning greater than birth
The somnolent stirring of leaves gives no answer
Exteriors seem cold, indifferent and base
Fear is an ache and hope a deep hunger
Nothing is permanent…nothing but grace
His grace is greater than anything
Our perfect Creator gives this life meaning
His grace saves the soul that will not die
And thus, by the grace of God go I
Janet Martin~
I’m not sure I captured in this poem the heart of my pondering…
It began with my 13 yr.old son’s off-handed remark about there really being no point to anything because everything ends…he was talking about fun.
Later my husband remarked that the problem with good moments is that they end…
And I asked him do they? Or is what we see as the end really the beginning of the next moment which could be better but we don’t know because we have not yet lived it. Okay, futile subject, I know. But I did get to thinking about how empty every moment is at its base level. We were created by God and within us is a place that only He can fill. And only as He fills that place can we find genuine peace and purpose. The created needs the Creator. Our life is a gift. Don’t we want to know the Giver?
Are those moments in the collage above moments of purpose...or futility?
I love the book of Ecclesiastes, and I love these verses from Ephesians 2:
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.